


The Void

by kissthesky237



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, The Void, be aware of that, borderline suicidal thoughts, dont think about it too much, game/world mechanics that dont really make sense, zedaph's bumless pit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25664497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissthesky237/pseuds/kissthesky237
Summary: Zedaph falls into his bumless pit, and keeps falling.And falling.And falling.With no end in sight, and quickly losing all hope of ever seeing his friends again.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 121





	1. Zedaph Falls

Zedaph was ecstatic. He’d asked Impulse to break a hole in the bedrock below his base a while ago and had just received a message that it was finally done! He practically skipped to the site just thinking of everything he could do with such a thing. A hole in the bedrock, supposedly unbreakable. With Impulse’s help, the very mechanics of his world were obsolete. Zedaph saw the carnage of what used to be his stone floor, where now a hole directly to the void sat in its place. He could feel a chill run through him as he stared at the impossible in awe. Pure nothingness lay beneath the crumbled bedrock. And Zedaph managed to ignore the slight undertone of dread creeping into his skin, seeping in around his bubbling excitement.

Throughout the next couple of hours, Zedaph had a wonderful time experimenting with his new contraption. He threw items down the hole. He pushed a chicken in. He rode a pig. Everything was going swimmingly. He even flew around with his elytra and managed to make it back alive. The entire experience was very surreal. As he landed back on solid ground and put the elytra away, Zedaph couldn’t help but feel excited about the possibilities this opened up. As he made sure everything was stored safely in a chest, he considered what would happen if he just jumped? He hadn’t tried many life-threatening or really dangerous tests yet, apart from the flying, but the thought scared him. Everyone knew that if you died, you’d just respawn back at your bed, no big deal. But something about the void terrified Zedaph to his very core. The mystery and power and utter helplessness it exuded. He had never heard of a player falling into the void in the Overworld, so arguably he didn’t know for sure what would happen. Of course, players had fallen in the End, but it felt like a different situation. Falling was expected in the End. But there’s a reason players shouldn’t be able to break bedrock. The void was unforgiving, and his world was trying to protect him from a terrible fate.

As he packed up his things for the day, Zedaph put a few safety precautions over the bumless pit, just to be sure nobody would fall on accident. His dreams that night were plagued by speculations of what the void might contain, and what could possibly be waiting on the other side if he were to fall in. Needless to say, he didn’t sleep too well, and woke up decidedly on the wrong side of the bed. Which all spiraled into him angrily staring into the void. Just sitting on the edge. He felt strangely calm after a few moments and became transfixed by the mystery and emptiness that sat before him. Zedaph forgot his frustration and tiredness. Simply staring into the darkness below him. It seemed to stare back. Beckoning him. Zedaph was so caught up in this trance, that he failed to hear the groans of a zombie behind him, and was taken by surprise when he was hit, and felt himself falling. 

Falling.

Falling.

Into nothingness.

He saw the hole in the floor quickly shrink out of sight, the crisp air whipping at his face as he fell, further and further. He expected the familiar but unsettling feeling of breathlessness that prefaced suffocating in the void, but it didn’t come. His breath got short, but never left him. Zedaph was falling endlessly, never reaching anything. Not even death. He shouted into the darkness but couldn’t even hear an echo. The wind persistent and painful on his face, he bitterly wished for it to just end already. He felt nauseous. He felt like he was stuck on a rollercoaster that doesn’t stop dropping as his fall refused to cease. He couldn’t help the tears that started to sting his eyes as he curled his arms into himself and was soon sobbing.

The scenery didn’t change as Zedaph continued to fall, just black nothing and the deafening rush of wind against him. The noise quickly became unsettling. He expected peaceful quiet and a quick death to suffocation or something of the like. Not this endless suffering and painful noise. His face was raw from the wind, and sticky from dried tears. His limbs were slowly going numb, and Zedaph felt powerless. Fighting the wind, he reached for his communicator, and saw that he was alone. Nobody else was online. Nobody could save him from this hell that he’d brought upon himself. The tears eventually slowed to a stop, but the fear that he would be alone out here forever was quick to set in.

Zedaph desperately wondered why he’d thought a hole in the bedrock would be a good idea. Now he was paying for that horrible error, and the punishment seemed indefinite. Would anyone even notice that he was missing? Or would they carry on with their lives for another couple weeks, only then realizing, ‘hey! I haven’t seen Zed in a while!’ but he’d be dead by then. Surely. To starvation, dehydration. Something agonizingly slow and painful. He wouldn’t get a swift or merciful death out here, not like in the End. The void below the Overworld was unforgiving and cold. Zedaph hugged himself tighter, longing for his friends’ embrace, to hear their voices again. The harrowing loneliness ate away at his consciousness until he felt numb. Gazing out into the distance with nothing to focus on. Darkness and noise, no variation to break up the monotony. He had no idea how long he stayed like this, but it felt like days. Days of unrelenting loneliness and despair. His face hurt and the barrage of wind was starting to make his ears ring. He was growing terribly cold as well. With no armor on, he had nothing but his cardigan and a t-shirt to protect him from the chill. He decided to add hypothermia to his list of possible ways to die.

Zedaph could feel the numbing cold in his bones. The wind chill and empty air turning his skin a sickly shade of blue. The air was too thin, and breathing was just a little too difficult. He considered holding his breath. Maybe that would do it? Maybe he could suffocate himself and be free of this horrible purgatory. He started to zone out. His thoughts getting blurry. He probably passed out a couple times but couldn’t say for sure. Any hope had drained away hours ago as he fell through this limbo. Painfully silent and deafeningly loud at the same time. He got desensitized to the wind after a while and could drown it out a bit. There were no other sounds down here. Nothing to break up the stillness. Apart from Zedaph, himself. He was alone down here, and excruciatingly conscious of that fact. 

After what felt like weeks, Zedaph glanced back at his communicator. The time read 23:54. He didn’t know what day it was anymore. It could be hours or weeks from when Zedaph first fell into the void. The time was dragging on as he waited for someone, anyone to log on and help him out of this predicament. But the more he thought about it, he came to the realization that even if someone were to come online, what could they possibly do to help? He’d been falling for hours, possibly days. There was no way he could be saved. His only hope at this point would be for a mod to kill him so he could respawn. He needed Xisuma.


	2. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zedaph contemplates his situation and realizes just how hopeless it is.

As the hours ticked by, Zedaph drifted in and out of consciousness. He knew that Xisuma was his only hope but being unable to contact him made the situation difficult. Waiting for another hermit to log on seemed hopeless.  
Maybe they had all decided to take a break?  
Or maybe his communicator was broken.  
Maybe this was a badly timed prank?  
Had they blocked him?  
Or maybe….  
Maybe nobody was coming. Nobody cared. They never really did. He would be stupid to believe that anyone would notice his absence. He was doomed to be alone out here forever.  
Falling.  
With only himself for company.

He began to hate how his tears dried in the wind, making his face sticky and eyes swollen. Contemplating this, be wondered why the air below felt so different from what he was used to? It was strangely static and cold. Dry and uncomfortable. His skin was getting raw and itchy. This space felt empty, like lifeforms weren’t meant to breathe this air. Why was there even air down here? Shouldn't he be suffocating? Questions like these were all Zedaph had left to keep himself from spiraling into his own desperation. 

Curiously, Zedaph started to mess around with his communicator. Maybe it actually was broken. And if so, Zedaph could probably fix it, right? He could fix anything!

It wasn’t much, but he held tight to that small sliver of hope. He clicked through the various channels, private and public. He went through the settings, and even took off a panel on the back. Everything seemed to be in working order…  
That is until he spotted a small symbol at the top. He’d never seen it before, and so had no idea what it meant. But this was a lead. It could be his key to getting out of here! He fiddled around, tapping on the top of the screen, before clicking over to the settings again. As he got to the connection settings, he spotted the symbol, and his face fell. 

No Service.

He hadn’t been getting messages because he had no signal. Of course. He was such an idiot. Why would there be service in the void?

Tears once again began streaming down his face, faster than even the wind could dry them. Zedaph felt true hopelessness set in as he accepted that nobody would ever be able to save him. They wouldn’t even know what had happened, just that he’d disappeared one day. Would his friends look for him? How soon would they give up and accept that it was hopeless? That Zedaph would just be lost. Forever.

This grim outlook unsurprisingly made him feel even worse. He was getting very hungry and felt stupid for clearing his inventory entirely. Would he even be allowed to starve to death? Or would the unpleasant gnawing in his stomach stay with him for eternity? How long would forever feel like? Would he get used to it? Would time feel faster? Slower? What if he lost all sensations entirely and just took up space in endless nothing? How does endlessness even exist? There has to be an end somewhere! Surely! It can’t possibly go on forever!!  
But how long will it take to reach the bottom? Will he die from the height? Will he even notice before death consumes him? He was already falling so fast, how long would the point between the floor coming into view and hitting said floor last? Would he know? Would he respawn? 

Zedaph had so many questions. And no answers. He was alone left with his thoughts and nothing else.

He knew that it was probably best to avoid these types of tangents, but who could blame him? There was nothing to do out here but think. He supposed that he could take in the space around him, but it wasn’t much to look at.  
Well, it’s worth a try. It’s not like he’s pressed for time.

The first obvious thing was the noise. The unrelenting screaming of the wind as it rushed by him. If there were sounds down here, Zedaph wouldn’t know. It was impossible to hear anything else. Past the noise was a never-ending blackness. Although it had a slight purpley-gray tint to it. It was a pleasant color, regardless. There were slight particles rushing by with the wind, supposedly stagnant in the space. They were a bit darker than everything else. He faintly felt them as if he were falling through a cloud of flies. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation. The specks had some mass and reminded Zedaph of grains of sand. Floating grains of sand. He wondered if anything lived out here, too small for his eyes to perceive. In reality, he was desperate for any reason to believe that he might not be completely alone out here. But of course, it didn't work.

Zedaph believed he was a relatively introverted person. He kept to himself for the most part, only occasionally visiting his friends or asking them over to help him out with some contraption. But he never imagined that he would grow to hate being alone. It was suffocating to know that nobody was out here, that he was completely, truly alone. Isolated. The most alone he’d ever been in his life. And it was unbearable.


	3. Xisuma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xisuma tries to find a way to save Zedaph

Xisuma was beginning to get worried. He tended to keep tabs on all of the hermits, just to make sure they were all doing ok, but he hadn’t heard from Zedaph in a while. He nervously packed up a shulker box and equipped his elytra to fly over to the aforementioned hermit’s cave. It wasn’t often that someone would ignore his messages, and when they did, he would most likely find them engrossed in a project and in desperate need of a break. When he went to check up on unresponsive hermits, he brought snacks or a movie to break them away from whatever was consuming their attention. Which is why Xisuma was surprised to find the cave completely vacant when he arrived. To his knowledge, Zedaph didn’t have any projects outside his base, so this was strange.  
Where could he possibly be?   
Xisuma sent out a quick message to the hermits, asking if anyone had seen him recently. He slowly wandered around the contraptions and checked every corner for any sign of the missing hermit while he waited anxiously for a response.

The farms were running as usual, and the ticking of redstone filled the cave with idle sounds. It was strangely disconcerting, how the cave kept running even when its sole inhabitant had been missing for days. It was pristine. Nothing out of place or suspicious. No shulker boxes lying around projects, no dropped items. It made Xisuma uncomfortable. This place felt empty without Zedaph’s exuberance filling it with life. Although evidence of him was left in the character of his contraptions, and Xisuma couldn’t help the slight smile on his face as he marveled at the pure uselessness and concurrent brilliance in every invention.

Any response he got to the message confirmed his suspicion that nobody had seen or heard from Zedaph in a couple days, which ramped up Xisuma’s unease tenfold. Something was definitely wrong, but he had no clues as to what had happened. Until he climbed down the ladder in the middle of Zedaph’s storage area, where he found a shulker box full of typical items one might have in their inventory. As if he’d emptied it out before playing a game wherein one might end up dying. Looking down, Xisuma spotted the hole in the bedrock and was filled with dread. This wasn’t right. Did he really think a hole in the bedrock floor would be a good idea? He probably hired Impulse to do this…

Xisuma started to panic a little, as he realized what must’ve happened to his friend. He’d fallen down. Nobody knew what would happen if a player fell below the world, but he assumed that Zedaph wanted to find out. He always was incredibly curious and tended to jump first and think later. Literally in this case. Xisuma frowned and wondered why Zedaph had just disappeared. He expected that after falling into the void, a player would simply respawn after suffocating. But that had obviously not happened. Then again, nobody had ever fallen underneath the overworld before. Holes in the bedrock weren’t supposed to exist.   
Would Zedaph even appear if he teleported him back?  
Nervously, Xisuma pulled out his communicator and switched over to input a command. He figured it was worth a try.  
He painstakingly typed in each character. Staring at it for a second before hitting enter.   
.  
.  
.  
Nothing happened.  
Zedaph didn’t appear in front of him.  
His screen only showed [Unknown command.]  
Oh no.  
This was worse than Xisuma had realized.  
What had happened? And why couldn’t he teleport Zedaph back?  
He was running out of ideas and was frantically wracking his brain for anything that might work. Any ideas that happened to come up were quickly dismissed as impossible. There was nothing Xisuma could do. He felt helpless as he slid down the cave wall to sit on the cold stone floor. He pulled out his communicator again, just to see if he’d missed anything. He checked backlogs and chats, looking for any sign of his missing friend. Eventually, he came across something peculiar in the tab list. Zedaph was still there. His name was grayed out a bit, but it was definitely there. He was alive. Somewhere. Maybe there was hope for him yet?

Xisuma, with his newfound vigor, started typing in commands desperately, hoping one would work. He typed the teleport command again, but to no avail. He sighed.   
Unless…   
Xisuma considered the possibility of teleporting himself to Zedaph. It might work. But would he just get stuck in the same place? He nervously considered any possibilities and knew that anything he tried would be very risky. Maybe he could fly them both back up on an elytra? But how long had Zedaph been falling for? Would that even be possible?

He made up his mind, that even though it might end terribly, he had to try. He couldn’t just leave Zedaph out there. Alone. So, he got up and put most of his gear in a chest by the hole, before taking out his box of fireworks. Next, he built a dirt platform a couple blocks below the hole, hoping it’d be big enough to land on. Finally, he took note of the coordinates. And typed in the command.  
He held his breath, and hit enter.


	4. Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They endure the long flight back, and make it home again.

There was a beat of stillness before Xisuma could feel himself start to fall. He shut his eyes tightly, nervous about what he might see once he opened them. But the crisp air and sudden cacophony of wind assaulting his ears assured him that he was, in fact, in the void. The falling sensation accompanying the change in location further proved that his teleport had been a success. He slowly cracked open one eye and could see Zedaph falling further down, much faster than himself. He frantically repeated his teleport command, reaching out to grab hold of Zedaph as soon as he could to avoid losing him. The force of Zedaph’s weight made it difficult to hold on, and he was pulled down harshly, endangering his already feeble grip. He held on tight and took in the state of his friend. He didn’t look too good. The hand he’d grabbed was clammy and tinted blue, clearly not gripping Xisuma’s in return. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be unconscious. Xisuma gingerly placed his other hand on Zedaph’s chest, and felt it feebly rise as the other man took a slight breath in. Xisuma sighed and wrapped his arms around his unconscious friend, pulling him close to his chest and curling his body protectively around him. He glanced around and took in the darkness they were falling through. It was empty. And he couldn’t see the floor he had been on moments before. Zedaph had been falling for a long time. 

He tried a command to kill them both, which was unsurprisingly ineffective, along with a teleport back to the overworld. Also unsuccessful. Xisuma was ecstatic that he’d managed to teleport here and find Zedaph, but he still had a lot of work ahead of him to fly them back. He took a deep breath, tightened his grip, and shot them upwards with a couple of rockets.

It was hard to tell which direction they were going, so Xisuma opened the coordinates screen on his helmet, and tried to stay in the general area he knew the hole would be. They were moving incredibly fast but were still tens of thousands of blocks away from their destination.   
This would take a while.   
It was strangely serene down here. Empty and cold, but quiet. Calming. Although, he could only imagine how awful it would feel to be stuck down here for an extended period of time. Curiously, he pulled out his communicator, and saw that there was no connection. That explained the lack of messages and unsuccessful commands. If he didn’t manage to fly them back, they would truly be stuck down here forever.

Around an hour later, Zedaph shifted a bit, and looked around blearily. He was confused as he glanced up to see Xisuma was holding him. Their eyes met and Zedaph saw a relieved smile take over his face. They were flying. Not falling. Although the sensation was similar, Zedaph couldn’t be happier to be rid of that terrible feeling in his gut that had stuck with him for so long. He tried to say so, but nothing could be heard above the wind, and he got only a sympathetic shrug in response. Zedaph sighed, and held on tighter to Xisuma, letting his head rest on his chest as he slowly fell unconscious again.

Xisuma was relieved that Zedaph had woken up, even for a few moments. It was comforting to know that Zedaph wasn’t completely gone yet. The hours after that passed excruciatingly slow. Xisuma was getting bored of the same dark nothing around them. This was worse than flying in nether tunnels. At least they had some variation. Occasionally, Zedaph would wake up again, but not for long. He only noticed it because his grip on Xisuma’s back would tighten whenever he was conscious. It was heartbreaking to realize just how long Zedaph had been alone out here with nobody to talk to, and Xisuma squeezed him back whenever he noticed.   
It was a wordless affirmation of sorts. A confirmation that he wasn’t alone anymore. They had each other, and they would make it out of this. One way or another.

As the hours dragged on, Xisuma periodically checked his communicator for service. He planned to teleport them once they were close enough, as it would be easier than climbing up a one block wide hole. And save some rockets, which Xisuma was rapidly using up. As they flew, Zedaph woke up more often, and for longer periods of time. He tended to idly tap and draw patterns on Xisuma’s back. It was a nice distraction that kept him from spiraling into his worry and exhaustion.

After what felt like forever, the icon finally popped up in the corner of Xisuma’s screen. He immediately started to type in the teleport command, grinned down at Zedaph, and pressed enter.  
There was a beat of silence.  
And then they were suddenly back on solid ground.

They excitedly hugged each other, tears flowing freely down each of their faces in relief before they collapsed into a pile on the floor.  
Zedaph was talking so fast, trying to explain what had happened, now that he finally could, and Xisuma listened. He held him tight, and took it all in. They had done it. They had braved the void and returned home to tell the tale.

Eventually, his babbling slowed down, and Zedaph could feel his weariness setting in. He was still hungry. And he wanted nothing more than to sleep in a bed again. They slowly stood up, and made their way over to the storage pit, where Zedaph picked up some carrots before collapsing onto his bed. He quickly fell asleep, immensely more comfortable than he had been in days. But most importantly, Xisuma was right beside him making sure he was safe and didn’t have to feel alone again. He would see his friends again in the morning, but for now, he could rest. And recover. And eventually, he would be ok again.


End file.
